a couple of finished projects

Possible too late now, I "finished" this cardigan. I say finished because it's got all it's bits and pieces knitted an assembled. But it isn't really finished because the front edge curls back unatractively when done up. so I will need to work on it to fix that.

This cat turned up much more successfully (although that might be just because it's so slim). It's got lots of flaws, most of which TLM has already pointed out. Like, the ears are too big, the tail seam is really obviously and has already come unstuck from the side of the body, and one arm is more muscular than the other.

Censorship madness at The Warehouse

The highlight of many of our weekends is a visit to The Warehouse (yes, we are lame). We all check out the DVDs, the boy checks out the computer games, TLM checks out the toys, and I keep up with the Rachel Hunter Collection.

This time around we selected some DVDs to buy - Disney's Fantasia 2000 and a Star Wars Clone Wars collection for TLM, and Hot Fuzz on Blue Ray for the boy.

But when we got to the counter, the sales clerk explained that sorry, he could not sell us the Hot Fuzz DVD because it's PG13 and we were clearly accompanied by a person aged under 13 years.
I replied that we had no intention of letting TLM watch this DVD - she had two new ones of her own. But the sales clerk said no.
"Okay, I'll leave her around the corner and come back alone", I offered. But he still would not be allowed to sell the DVD to boy and me, because he'd seen TLM with his own eyes.

So we walked away with only the kids' DVDs.

Crazy.

Being blobby

I've taken a week off, for the second week of the school holidays. I had a list of fun things that we were going to do together:

• visit the observatory on open night and look through the giant telescope
• make crystals
• Go see Brave
• hang

Since the weekend, we've really only managed the last one.
This is due to a combination of TLM catching yet another bug, and TLM staying up all night to read instead of going to sleep like a good girl. And it probably doesn't help that I've been a bit insomniac myself recently.

The observatory open night is tomorrow - hopefully the sky will not be completely overcast as it has been lately, otherwise we'll only get to see cloud.

The chrystal-making will depend on whether I can get hold of any copper sulphate, sodium carbonate or borax. I still remember making copper sulphate chrystals at school and how pretty they were.

As for going to see Brave, TLM already went to see that last week during her school holiday programme. Still, she could go see it a second time and not be as scared during it.

Just hanging is pretty cool though.

Paua and ginger

 Of course, this top (which I just finished knitting) would look great on someone with model-like proportions; on me it probably only looks warm and colourful.

But I really enjoyed making this and it's very comfy and if I can just pretend that I've got a narrow waist then it will all be fine.

It's got cables at front and back, and the edgings are in twisted rib.

The gory details are on Ravelry.

Is it customary?

I always find myself watching Border Patrol on the telly, which is an Australian reality show about the Customs people in an Aussie airport. They are the folks whose job is to scan the bleary-eyed people who've just come off a long-haul flight and pick out the suspicious-looking ones.

For some reason, most of these people are Asian and the rest seem to be Middle-Eastern. Now, I would be the first to admit that the occasional homesick Asian will try to smuggle in an illegal taste of home in their strangely lumpy luggage.

But white folks aren't all innocent you know - like, Schappelle Corby was white and she got caught with a load of drugs in her surfing bag. Though that was in Bali. Maybe the Balinese think all white people look suspicious and the Australians think that all Asians and Middle-Easterners look suspicious.

It seems to me that certain races are being targeted just because they aren't white.
Or is the stereotypical goody-two-shoes Asian just a big fat myth?

Winter shopping

The Kathmandu chain is having yet another one of its big sales, and since we've been suffering galeforce southerlies, icy rains and 7C air temperatures (that's without the wind chill factor), the shop was extremely busy today - I'm talking queues for the changing rooms and queues at the checkout counter.

The boy wanted to buy TLM some leggings (I haven't been buying them myself, because she is always falling over and putting holes in the knees. Instead, I've been patching them). We did - TLM also ended up with a jacket to add to her impressive collection, as well as matching top and bottoms thermals and some woolly socks.

Then the boy went and bought himself a few things.

All the while, I was thinking that I've knitted various items to keep my family warm - yet they still prefer to buy factory made. I staunchly avoided buying anything for myself (until I got to the Warehouse, where they were selling merino tops $39 for two  - that's cheap for NZ) because I've been knitting steadily to increase my wardrobe of handknitted winter clothing.

Oh well. I can't expect other people to appreciate my efforts as much as I do.

Prometheus

TLM had her first Pippins over-nighter on the weekend - we dropped her off at the designated Girl Guides location at 2pm on Saturday and didn't go back to get her until 1pm the following day.

That's a whole lot of child-free time.

I spent the afternoon with my good friend who was visiting from Taiwan; we drank coffee, ate cake and talked about our respective obsessions (her - tap dancing, me - knitting and TLM).

Then the boy and I went out for tea at our usual pre-movie eating place (The Hog's Breath) and went to the movies.

I was tossing up between Prometheus and The Avengers - the former because it's by Ridley Scott (I loved Alien and Bladerunner), the latter because it's by Joss Wheden (who is god). Basically, the movie I chose was the first movie I could find on the Internet which was definitely being screened in 2D rather than 3D. I am one of those unfortunate folk with unequal vision, who get headaches after using 3D vision glasses.

As for Prometheus? Well, I enjoyed it. It was a space horror with a feisty heroine, a spooky atmosphere and a totally unnecessary reference to the evolution vs Creationism argument. As far as I'm concerned, there's no argument, so why can't we just treat the possibility that humans were created by super-humans as just another speculation? Why does the plot have to serve as a Creationist manifesto? If you ask me, there's an awful lot of unnecessary religious references in science fiction. But I did enjoy the movie. Though maybe we should have gone for the Joss instead.

When we went to get TLM on Sunday, she announced that she didn't like overnighters - and that the highlight was the cheese.

An enticement

New Zealand is really far away from most of the rest of the world. But it's really pretty when the sun comes out. These views are only a few minutes away from my house.

 And our art galleries are full of interesting objects too (City Gallery)

Happy birthday, your majesty

I want you to know that, even though I've had a terrible cold since just before the long weekend, I still donned my Union Jack singlet yesterday (with a merino shirt underneath). And I'm wearing it again today.

I like to think that this is my way of acknowledging the Queen's official birthday and jubilee, though mostly it's I just like to wear it because it's a souvenir of our Easter holiday in the UK. (And just in case the boy's dad is reading thing - I also wear the Union Jack t-shirt which you gave me, but will probably have to let TLM have it because she really likes it).

Next weekend TLM  will be going on her first Pippins overnighter. I was filled in her consent form yesterday and wasn't sure what to put in the space they've given to for any medical conditions they need to know about. Should I write that she sometimes has cramps in her tummy but they'll go away if she has a poo?

I've not been idle, nor uncreative

I've been knitting a few things:

• a cardigan for the boy, after he approved the pattern and the colour (boring dark green - the woman who sold it to me said she spins it especially for bloke's knits)
• A berry-coloured cabled cardigan for me (if this one turns it will be only the second successful cardigan I've ever completed)
• a pullover which I started months ago, which I become horribly pissed off with because the instructions were so hard to decipher and full of errors

The boy said recently that my knitting was not nearly as creative as some of my previous pursuits (i.e. painting, sewing, refashioning). That's probably true because when I knit I just follow instructions in a pattern, and the only creative choices I make are about what yarn and colour to use.

Does he know I blame him for my lack of sewing and refashioning? That he always made grunt-y complaining noises when I tried to use my sewing machine (probably because it was right next to him playing computer games), and felt neglected if I spent an hour sewing on my own?

I can't really blame him for my lack of painting though. I have to blame sheer busy-ness, lack of space and fear of mess that can't be removed because acrylic dry in, like, no time at all.

Holiday highlights and lowlights

Here's a photo-less list of impressions and stuff which comes to mind when thinking back to our time in the UK:

The biggest and bestest highlight was most definitely getting to meet the boy's family. Fantastic people, and we've already pledged to save up and go back as soon as we can.

The jetlag was no fun. We were pretty much jetlagged the whole time we were there, and by the time it was over we had to come home.

I saw very few people with teeth like Austin Powers.

I found out after we got home that there's a specialty yarn shop in the very town where the boy's brother lived - where we stayed at the end of our two weeks. But I guess it must sound weird to you that I, a resident of a country known for it's sheep, would want to go shopping for knitting yarn in another country.

Springtime in England is no time to be frolicking about in floral dresses and pastel capri pants (so just as well I didn't have any). It's too damn cold.

TLM was not very nice to me while we were away. I put it down to her being super-tired and sleep-deprived, and feeling like I'm one person she can be a total cow to and I'd still love her. But still.

Tescos is absolutely massive. I recall a movie I saw once where in the future every restaurant is a Taco Bell. Well in the British version of the movie every grocery shop, petrol station, fashion shop, hardware shop, furniture shop, interiors shop, toy shop and book shop is a Tescos.

But at the moment there's tons of fun to be had at non-Tescos shops. Like Hamleys, where the boy and TLM bought a Hermione wand, a box of magic tricks and a set of 3-D felt pens (this was while I was looking for short ladies' trousers that aren't capri pants).

I could happily live in that part of England, especially after having read the local paper last night and discovering that my town is home to several infamous gangs, like Black Power and Satan's Slaves. How could I have not noticed? Like one guy was quoted in the article, we get more grief from bloody students who party every Saturday night and walk the streets speaking at top volume at 3am.

That is it for now.

Where the Gyptians live

It's a complicated system which allows the boats to chug uphill, so to speak.

There's the boy making himself useful

parking

Gallery where there used to be an iron foundry

The boy's brother in law and mischievous niece

Ahh...beautiful canal...

argh! Murky canal water!

Apparently people like to decorate the roofs of their boats as though their personalities depend on it.

lock opens to let a gaily coloured narrow boat through

The boy and TLM leaping over the lock

I'm referring, of, to the waterborne Gypsy-type folk in Phillip Pullman's Northern Lights trilogy (and the move The Golden Compass). I thought it quite apt because these photos of the canals and narrowboats were taken in or near Oxfordshire.

They are quite beautiful until you get a bit closer to the water and see how gunky it is.

England is for lovers...of beautiful old buildings

The Bridge of Sighs, Oxford

Also in Oxford

The Bridge of Sighs, closer up

Inside the natural history museum in Oxford

Some of the vast collection of dead animals in the natural history museum

An old castle somewhere between Oxfordshire and Devonshire

Glastonbury (I think) high street

 

 

An even higher street, in Ilfracoombe

We just don't get stuff this old in New Zealand, where any building more than about 150 years old is considered ancient and worthy of protection.

I just love old buildings, though I might not want to be a homeowner of one.

And a word about the natural history museums we visited - they are terribly sad places groaning with death and human arrogance.

A nation of dog owners

check the eyebrows on that owl in the back!

yes, this bird is wearing a helmet

If our time in the English Home Counties is an accurate reflection of the Engish in general, then they really chock-full of dog-owners.

In our first week in Blighty we stayed with the boy's lovely big sister, her husband and their cheeky 3 year old daughter. They took us out every day. On our first day after arriving at their historic Buckinghamshire home, they took us to a local country fair.

Having watched a number of episodes of Return to River Cottage on the telly, I was fully expecting to see home baking competitions, tables laden with unusually oversized vegetables, and pet farm animals. What I did see was a large number of hunting birds (pictured above - no idea what they are called, except the owl with the enormous eyebrows is called an eagle owl) and ferrets, pony and trap races, and assorted huntin' n' fishin' wares.

And dogs. There were dogs everywhere - all beautifully turned out as though headed for a show. But there wasn't one. They were just well-looked after and on an outing with their owners. We spotted one lady with a ferret on a leash, but mostly it was dogs. (But alas, I have no photo of any of the dogs!)

The boy's dad has a jack russell called Tia, and she was a super-energetic pup who is apparently prone to weeing herself when she gets a bit excited. The boy's brother also has a dog, a big'un called Daisy who liked me better than TLM for some reason (maybe because I'm a bit allergic to her).

Half way 'round the world (and back again) in 18 days

We just returned from our holiday in the UK. Actually, we've been back since Monday afternoon - but I've been too jet lagged to blog about it.

Now that my body is back to relative normality (i.e. waking up at 4am and then falling asleep just before the alarm goes off at 7.15am) I can say - hi! It's great to be home again!

I'll follow up in later posts with photos and more details, but it was great and worth being in the air for about 26 hours (plus about 5 hours in transit in total) each way.

I did miss our bed (which is probably not surprising as the boy and I are no longer young), and some things were just outrageously expensive (15 quid for 2 burgers, 2 fries and 2 drinks at a Burger King off the motorway!!). But I guess the biggest downside was that we didn't have enough time there. We didn't get to visit White Horse Hill, for example, even though it was not far from from where we were staying near Aylesbury.

However - the boy's family were wonderful, TLM loved meeting her cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.

I also got to experience a part of the UK quite unlike that which most Kiwis get to know (i.e. London and surrounds), a place which I think I'd enjoy living in (if we could afford to live there).

And - last but not least - I was able to buy trousers that actually fit me.

All about my dental trauma

Dentists get a bad rap because they have to inflict pain on people who don't look after their teeth.

For years, I had no problem getting my teeth checked because most of my teeth got filled in with that silver and black amalgam when I was a kid - by adulthood, there were no more fillings to get.

So I wasn't too worried about having my first check-up since TLM was a bum-crawler. It was a bonus that my new dentist was young and cute - when my previous two dentists had been on the verge of retirement and - in one case - dealing with minor Parkinsons.

It was quick - he said my gums are in great condition, but my teeth should really get rid of that tartar build-up. When he told me how much it cost to see the dental hygienist, I realised why it only cost $45 to get a check-up including x-rays.

The woman whose job it was to scrape stuff off my teeth, was pleasant enough - a young black woman in a sexy-secretary sort of outfit. I lay back in her chair and started feeling drowsy. She gave me a pair of dark glasses to shield my eyes from the bright light.

And then she hurt me.

Hurt is not quite the right word.  The scraping - oh, my sensitive teeth! The loud buzz of the suck-y thing in my mouth that was probably supposed to suck up my saliva bit felt like it was spraying my chin. The way the muscles on the back of my head and neck spasmed from wanting to clench but having to keep my jaws open like a big snake trying to spew up an ostrich egg (whole).

Finally, she finished. I tongued my teeth and felt gaps between them that I'd forgotten I'd ever had.
My teeth hurt.

When I got back to the office, I looked at her business card. It called her a "hygienist and therapist". Well, all I can say is - it was bloody obvious I was in need of some therapy after that experience, but she. did. not. offer. me. ANY.

TLM models her cardigan

In it's finished form, with two red functional buttons plus two decorative ones.

Here it is on TLM

And here she is with her most mental pose...

A day of one's own

Today I have been watching brain-numbing television, knitting, and surfing the web for interesting knitting patterns to use on my Rowan Summer Tweed yarn. Soon I'll put on some Buffy and have my lunch.

It would be a blissful day if I wasn't headache-y, feverish and coughing up unspeakable yuckiness.
I have TLM's cold - it didn't affect her like this.

The little shit - the next generation

Most of you weren't reading my blog back in 2004, when I wrote about the time a little kid assaulted me on the library bus (and I wasn't even trying to make him pay overdue fines).

But that's what the title of this blog post is referring to.
This isn't a sequel exactly. But there's certainly a little shit in this story.

The story, to cut a long one into a short one, is that TLM was punched in the chest yesterday by a little shit in her class. This little shit is the same boy who last year kicked another classmate in the groin so hard that she bled, and was off school for a week.

TLM wasn't so badly injured, and seems to be over it. But I've known about this kid and his propensity for violence and foul language for about a year. I can't give any details because it's all confidential, but the school has been trying to deal with the kid and keep him under some kind of control while still giving him a chance to change his ways.

Part of me (say, about 90%) just wants him out of my daughter's class (and preferably in a special facility with trained supervisors and lots of padding).
The other part of me thinks that, for a 6 year old kid to be this anti-social, he must have been raised in a truly horrible environment.

I don't have an answer for how someone like this ought to be dealt with. But there are about 20 kids in his class who need to feel safe.

Cardigan finished

You know that saying "the camera loves her"?
Well the camera has really got a grudge against me, because since adulthood the only two photos of me I haven't hated have been taken in low light and from about 10 m away.

Anyway, the cardigan's finished, just in time for our trip to the UK in their spring. I'll be wearing it over long sleeves of course, so protect my dainty skin from wool-irritation.

It will probably look much better over a black t-shirt rather than the shiny green thing pictured here.
If you want the the whole gory knitting story, go here.

non-knitting books I've been reading

It was a sewing book.

Just kidding. After a long stretch of narrowly focusing on that particular aisle in the public library which starts with interior design, moves onto cross-stitch, weaving and knitting before finishing with crochet - I decided that I had enough cardigan patterns.

So I read David Sedaris' When you are engulfed in flames, which I loved. It's one of those blackly funny memoir-type books which I would have loved to write myself (but my protagonist would not have been a gay American ex-smoker). I liked it so much I went back for another one - which title I forget, but it's full of animal stories (as in, there are no people but the animals are people, if you get my drift). It's also funny, bleak and makes me nod my head and go "yes, that's right".

I also have The Freedom Manifesto by Tom Hodgekinson. But it's not as interesting because it's too simular to his How to be Idle. I suspect the author's a bit of a libertarian, as he's always going on about how the government is controlling the population. But he is also anti-capitalist, so that's alright. I can't help feeling though that his way of living only works if you are a free-lancer and if everyone else is still part of the "system".

On popularity

I've been worrying about TLM because, even though she's the nicest, cutest, most imaginative and  charming 6 1/2 year old I know, she is sometimes friendless.

At school TLM has tons of friends - no worries there.
But at Chinese School (which is weekly), if her cousin isn't there then she has no chums amongst her classmates.

After each Pippins meeting lately, she tearfully complains that the other girls won't talk to her. It hasn't put her off going, and it's probably due to her being the only girl in the group who doesn't go to school there. But the thought of her sitting all by herself while gaggles of girls giggle around her, makes me sad.

TLM also does a bit of Chinese dancing. And it's a really similar situation there. They don't all go to the same school or anything, but they are pretty clique-y. 

Probably, if I don't do anything, she will eventually either make more friends just by being her lovely self - or turn out to be one of those types with a really small number of wonderful friends rather than a hoard of casual friends.  She will probably be fine.

It's hard not to try to make it better though.

Is this how yarn stashes begin?

When I buy knitting yarn, I usually have a project in mind already - like a specific pattern I want to use. That way, I know exactly how much yarn to buy and what colours to use. It also minimises the risk of building a huge stash of yarns that I don't necessarily know what to do with.

But I have discovered Deramores. They have a subsite for New Zealand, so all the prices are in NZ dollars. And the prices are so low compared to local retail prices that it's hard to believe they are in NZ dollars rather than pounds.

It's very very tempting to buy just about everything, especially the Rowan yarns which are prohibitively expensive here (like, $18 for a ball of Rowan Jeans for example). But I want to support my local yarn shops and New Zealand yarns etc, so I'll try to stick to yarns that I can't easily get locally - like cotton or silk types. And Rowan.


It's so very very tempting...

You can tell it's the start of a new year...

The weekend of the 11th-12th February is going to so busy I'll need naps:

• On the Friday I have to go to Taupo to train some people and be back in time to tuck TLM into bed
• On Saturday I need to take TLM down to a school across town to enrol in music lessons
• On Sunday mid-morning her best friend from daycare is having a birthday dance party.
• On Sunday afternoon she's in a group performing a ribbon dance in the Chinese New Year Parade
• and some time before then I have to enrol her in swimming lessons...

I think TLM might need some naps too.

A winter cardie for TLM

I know it's the middle of summer here, but I reckon it will be very handy for when WE GO TO THE UK IN APRIL!! (yes that's right, the flights are booked, the insurance is bought and the UK family have been warned)

p.s. if you're a knitting nerd like me you can check out the progress on Ravelry (even if you ain't a member).

Better than Cosmic

Until recently, The Little Madam's favourite place to go was the Cosmic shop. It's a loud and funky place where a DJ plays music to nod your head by, and you can shop for a leopard-print fedora, an ice cube mould shaped like UFOs or a bong (but not the stuff that goes in the bong). It's bright, it's colourful, and the staff look like they love being there. They always give TLM free stickers too.

But now TLM's favourite place is the Marine Education Centre. I took her there last Sunday for one of their regular open days, and they have this high, shallow basin where rocky shore creatures live. You're allowed to touch them, even pick them up and stroke 'em like pets.

TLM was particularly struck by the sand dollar starfish, which she like way better than the hermit crab and the sea cucumber. She'd pick it up, put it on the back of her hand and let it's little feelers tickle her skin. She probably spent at least an hour there, perched on an apple crate and wearing one starfish after another.

My favourite bit was watching one of the (ex-household pet) turtles attempt to climb on top of another, lose its balance and fall over backwards, it's flippers waving around like it was doing a "dead ant".

Mushroom hunting in the shadow of Ruapehu

TLM loves going on holiday. That's probably because she associates it with staying in a reasonably comfortable motel unit and going on day trips with mum and dad.

 She was probably quite disappointed when we went to Tongariro National Park for our Christmas/New Year holiday and had to share a small bunkroom in a scout camp.

There were about 50-60 other people, all of whom where friends and family of the guy whose 50th birthday we'd gone up to celebrate. There were loads of children (and even a fellow knitter).

So despite the lack of privacy and sleep, we did have a very sociable time - maybe even more than we could cope with, being a small and normally quiet little family.

 We went for walks at the foot of Mt Ruapehu, shopped for thermal underwear (for the sudden and unprepared-for drop in temperature), and used our mushroom identification guide to name the various fungi that we came across.

But sleep deprivation won out in the end, and we came home a couple of days early. Just to show how much sleep I needed to catch up on, I slept in until 10am today - unheard of!

Dollhouse

Argh...we've been watching Dollhouse, which has taken this long (2 years!) to arrive on New Zealand television (but at 9.30pm when I'd normally be gearing down for the night).

I found it quite dark and sometimes a real downer because I hated the concept of men and women essentially being pimped out to rich people to fulfill their fantasies. It was also kinda confusing - characters seemed to disappear with no explanation and others changed from being bad guys to not-so-bad guys and back again suddenly.

If it weren't for the fact that I was browsing a Joss Whedon magazine (a run-down of every episode of every tv series he's ever done!), I would not have realised that the tv network has been showing us the episodes in a completely mixed up order. Like, Epitaph Two coming right after Epitaph One - when they are each the final episodes to 2 entirely separate seasons. That might explain all the sudden disappearances and character changes!

Now I'm gonna have to order the DVDs from overseas so I can watch them in the proper order.

Going public-er

I just spent an hour uploading my knitting projects to Ravelry. It was very satisfying to revisit my successes (my failures having nearly all been unravelled so there are no photos) and to have another brag about them.

Not that I'm saying you have to revisit them with me. Because I haven't figured out how you'd do that.

I think this means that the camera DOES lie

My recent passport photo has been haunting me ever since I first laid eyes on that horrid image. How could I have aged so much since the last one, taken five years ago?
I toyed with the idea that maybe I shouldn't have grown out my fringe after all.
And I should have done it on a day when I washed my hair, for maximum volume.

Then I decided to have 'em done again, only this time I went to the pharmacy where I'd got my photos done five years ago. See, this pharmacy doesn't insist on you putting your hair behind your ears.

And you know what? I think I look just five years older after all.

If Santa was a knitter...

I would get a year's subscription to Interweave Knits and Knitscene magazines, and every member of my family would receive hand-knitted expressions of love from me for Christmas.

If the boy reads this blog post there's a chance of the first one coming true.
And I'm working on the other one - this pair of heavily cabled cushions are for my brother and my sister in law. The colour of the yarn is more of a ginger colour than how it looks in the photo.

And this vest is for my mum. Yes, it is mid-summer. But she feels cold a lot.
The kids and the boy will be getting something non-knitted, because they prefer toys...

Surprisingly edible gingerbread dinosaurs

TLM brought home a wee notice asking for help with her school's fundraising sweet stall - as you do.
I didn't fancy spending 4 hours of my Saturday selling cakes and biscuits, because if it turned out to be a windy day my eyes would be bloodshot all day.
So I decided to use the dinosaur cookie cutters that TLM got for Christmas last year and make biscuits. The theory is, if you can make 'em look pretty they won't notice if they don't taste good.
Then, of course, I mentioned it at work and next thing I know there's an Alison Holst recipe for gingerbread men on my seat.
Turns out, it makes a very nice biscuit.

The photos are of the proportion I kept for home consumption, so you can't see that I made Tyranosaurus Rexes to go with the Stegosauruses (which, to be honest, look more like chameleons).

We went by the stall on Saturday (after voting in the general election), and it looked like most of 'em had been sold. A hit!

p.s. I won't copy the recipe for you because 1) it would probably break copyright laws, and 2) I can't possibly be bothered doing all that typing. But I think it was in last week's Dominion Post if you're interested.

a seedling girl scout

I really want TLM to learn self-reliance and how to survive in the bush.
I want her to have a wider circle of friends and I want her to have opportunities to go camping.

So last Tuesday evening I took her to a local Pippins group meeting. (Pippins is the section of Girl Guides for girls aged 5 and 6.)

(I did think of calling the Scouts too, as an alternative, since they take girls now. But in the end I was too lazy to make that extra phone call.)
And she loved it. They went tree-planting at a neighbouring school, sangs songs, went for a rainforest walk and a ride on a flying fox.

Apparently they don't do the knot-tying and camping until Brownies (for the next age group up) - which is okay - and it's not God-fearing as it would have been in the old days - which is a relief. They might even teach her to crochet animals (fingers crossed).

Never get your passports photos taken on bad hair day

We're planning on visiting the boy's family next year, in the UK. Hooray!

But then I realised that my passport, and TLM's have both expired (because the powers that be - bastards! - decided that NZ passports only last 5 years).

Which meant that it was time for my 5-yearly photo.

It probably wouldn't have made a difference if I was having a good hair day.

Maybe it's the harsh light, or the fact that I blank out anything truly ugly I see when I look in the mirror, or the fact that the photos are so severely cropped that there's absolutely no hope your fabulous outfit will distract the viewer from seeing your inglorious flaws.
But, ye gads I was shocked.

You know how certain sects recruit new members by offering free personality tests, whose purpose is to expose (or make up) all your terrible character flaws?

Well, I reckon if Botox-ers and cosmetic surgeons offered a free passport photo service, they'd become Bill Gates-level billionaires. Because when I returned to my desk I started looking up anti-aging products...

not so gross domestic product

I've been left alone at home this morning - the boy has taken TLM out for breakfast at McD's and who-knows-what.
I could have spent my morning cleaning the house, which is what I did last time they went out without me.

This time, I've been productive in a more enjoyable way - after patching one of TLM's may knee-holed leggings, I set about refashioning a jumper of mine.
There are actually two of them - same style, different colours - which I bought last winter when I felt like I needed a warm, non-itchy jumper. The only place selling them seemed to be Ballentynes, a place I've always felt seemed like an old-lady shop, but had the widest range of woolies in town.
These are 100% genuine acrylic - nothing flash but at least I can wear those next to my skin.

I loved the cabled neckline and the colour, but the length is pretty tragic on me, no? (Plus it's still creased from being folded up and crammed in my drawer)

 So I decided to experiment on one of them.
I cut off the ribbing at the hem, zig-zagged both raw edges and dyed it a different colour. I didn't really dye it another colour. This is just the other jumper...

 The ribbing makes a lovely cowl for next winter!
(It's probably more flattering than the jumper, even post-alteration.)
Genius!

Proof of my lack of fitness

It was our AGM and we had to be there at 9am.
I was running late.
"I'll give you a lift" the boy offered.
At the bottom of the hill I rememberd my cell phone was still plugged in at home, so we had to return for that.
The boy dropped me off at the bottom of the stadium steps and I thought 'Yay I'm nearly there!"
Then I got to the top of the steps and realised that about I was still about a kilometre away from the entrance...
I ran and got out of breath...walked a bit... ran and got out of breath... walked...I huffed and I puffed and I got all sweaty...

and today my muscles are sore. I even have shin splints!

What I did in the school holidays

I have been taking time off for the second week of TLM's school holidays, and am having a great time (I can't speak for TLM but I reckon she's having fun too).
Although we haven't left town, I'm definitely spending money as though we were!

After days of buying yarn, summer clothes for me and TLM, books (including Conversations with Joss Whedon), lunches and gourmet ice creams, it was no surprise when I got a low-funds alert from my bank.

Yesterday I took TLM rollerskating - it was only her second time ever but she did get to the stage of being able to roll slowly for a couple of seconds without holding onto anything. Then we spent the afternoon at the beach where TLM got most of her clothes sea-soaked, and built a weird sculpture from bits of seaweed and dead crabs.

Today will be a lower-cost day - she's spending the morning watching Horrible Histories DVDs with a friend, and in the afternoon I'll drag her to a yarn sale near the beach (and if she's lucky there'll be beach play and ice creams to follow).

Love holidays.

On turning 47 and knitting a 60's style jumper

Isn't this a groovy rug? The boy bought it last Friday when he and TLM had a school holiday day-out. It goes so nicely with my new jumper...

In case you're wondering, I knitted the jumper out of some Patons Zhivago which I had already knit into cardigans - and unravelled - twice. Yes, this is thrice-knitted acrylic yarn and it doesn't seem to have suffered to0 much in the process.

The pattern is from Wendy Bernard's Custom Knits book -  I had to add extra increases in the body to accommodate the extra centimetres in my body.

So anyway, my 47th birthday came and went with little celebration, except that for once I shouted morning tea at work (vegan choco cake and cookies from Midnight Espresso) and the boy made extra-yummy gumbo for tea, with extra prawns and scallops. Mmm...

Three hottie cosies, two woolly vests and a very flattering slanted gretel tee...

Just so you know I've been keeping busy knitwise,  I've made:

• three modified versions of the Hygge Nook hot water bottle cosy (but different because I knitted two strands of doubleknit yarn together so it would be quicker to finish, and did a central cable rather than multiple cables)
• the Back to School vest from Fitted Knits (attempted against my better judgement, only to have it confirmed that a ribbed pullover is only slimming if you are actually slim)
• a modified version of the Blue Alvarez stripey cabled vest ( but mostly in a paua blue Cascade 220 superwash with narrow red strips at the top, and with a completely different cable pattern. This works much better than the other vest, but it will be my last garment in a yarn thicker than doubleknit, because it's really true that chunky is as chunky does)
• the slanted gretel tee from Interweave Knits magazine

I have no photos of the cosies because they were all presents and now reside at my brother's place and my mum's place respectively.

I have no photos of the vests because I haven't gotten around to it and I'm seriously considering unravelling the ribbed one and remaking it into something less chunkifying.

But I do have a photo of the tee.

The armholes were worryingly tight, but once I'd wetted and dried it flat they seemed to expand enough to fit my giant armpits.

Getting into the spirit of the RWC

Despite minimal interest in watching sport, I still managed to gather enough enthusiasm to decorate my portion of the office with Rugby World Cup paraphernalia. In our office we all had to blindly choose two participating countries to support, and my picks turned out to be Canada and Namibia.
The Namibian flag is really quite pretty.

Of course, you already know what the Canadian flag looks like.

They've been talking about it in all the schools, so even TLM was excited enough to watch the opening ceremony (mostly just the fireworks display).

So in the next  weeks I'll be checking to see how the All Blacks do in their games, but also supporting the Canadians and Namibians.
I bet Flagz is making tons o' money...http://www.flags.co.nz/products.php?func=14&DPT=c&DCI=5

More style tips from Auntie Violet

Ever since socks and undies have existed, men have known that you can put off laundry day significantly by wearing these items inside out on alternate days.

We can extrapolate this to women's wear, though maybe not with undies because women tend not to like that idea.

Here's one for those of you who like your tights matt, but can't afford cashmere ones - turn the buggers inside out! This also works great if your tights are all bobbly from too many accidental turns in the washing machine.

Genius.

Unseasonally warm

Today I was faced with a dilemma; when you've gone to work in boots and thick tights and the temperature surprises you with a lovely almost-summer warmth, which is worse - sweating it out in the boots and tights, or wearing the boots without the tights (and possibly still be sweaty but at least your knees will be comfortably cool)?

I decided to remove the tights. Fortunately my boots are leather lined, so my feet weren't tooooo bad. I even walked home this way, but it did feel kinda funny to be so intimate with the inner landscape of my footwear.

Though I probably wouldn't have risked it in synthetic boots.

Turning six, getting influenza and touching snow

It's been an eventful few days -  The Little Madam turned six last Thursday and had her birthday party on Saturday. It was a joint party, with her best mate at school who is her "star twin" (because they were born on the same day). The weather was kind, the kids were mostly co-operative and the animal biscuits went down a treat.

The next day was a different story though. At basketball she bopped herself on the nose with her ball, then when we played catch she got the same ball in between her fourth finger and pinky. And then she got sick.

On Monday I took her to the doctor's, where she was diagnosed with the 'flu. I'd been worried when TLM said her neck hurt, but apparently it wasn't due to meningicoccal disease - so that's good.

But once she'd had her first dose of Pamol, she was all lively and alert - enough to enjoy watching it snow (we NEVER get snow here). And now we won't have to go to Mt Ruapehu in mid-Winter for TLM's snow experience.